


a stable timeloop but at what cost

by eratedgore



Category: Soul Nomad
Genre: Gen, possibly inaccurate descriptions of illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 15:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15076274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eratedgore/pseuds/eratedgore
Summary: Bits and pieces and the end of the month Revya and Gig spent in the past.





	a stable timeloop but at what cost

**Author's Note:**

> from the ending where lujei piche sends revya and gig into the past and they kill median aka my favorite ending thanks yuri lowenthal for being so good at voicing gig

_ “The most common pattern is that the disease spreads slowly at first. Tenacious individuals will more or less function normally the first few days. Less healthy individuals exhibit symptoms like the beginning of a cold, and, while they can move, will generally stay in bed. If any rash is present, it’s small and faint, but it will grow. After the dormant period, usually spanning from three days to a week, the rash will suddenly and rapidly spread. It deepens in color, going from pink to a nearly blood red, and appears as blotchy spots that cover the individual until their body is largely covered in them. The individual will experience aching pain, often to the point where they can’t move. They may enter a coughing fit and feel short of breath. Death comes hours afterwards. Currently, it is unknown how Scarlet Iago affects the inside of the body, and what part of it actually causes death. There is no known cure.” _

 

They were taken to Median’s castle. Normally, they would be put on trial and executed for murdering the king, but there was far too much disorder for anything to get done, and they were put in a room and told to stay there. Not only was Median dead, but a plague threatened to sweep the land, and the people demanded a cure the government could not give. Gig laughed at all the chaos.

 

The soldiers waited outside his room all day and night. Gig took to insulting and provoking them when he was not grumbling about their situation. Revya talked to them very little, if at all. Sometimes very official looking people, important people maybe, came in and asked them things. Revya always asked Gig to not answer.

“Why did you kill him?” Revenge. (He never expanded upon this one.)

“What is that demon residing within you?” … (Gig commented very loudly inside their mindspace. Revya conveyed none of his words.)

“Do you even understand what this means for us?” You don’t have a king.

“Where do you come from?” Nowhere with a name.

“Did someone send you?” ...No. (He answered this one hesitantly. Yes, a witch had sent them back in time, but she hadn’t sent them to kill Median…?)

They grew tired of his meaningless answers, and eventually gave up on them. Revya just wanted to go home.

 

He wondered about everyone back in their world. Revya and Gig were teleported away in what was kind of the fight to decide the fate of the planet, and their role in it was kind of really important, so it’s likely everyone was freaking out at least a little. When Revya asked Gig what he thought, Gig said,

“How should I know? Hell, why would I care? They’re probably doing fine, and it’s not really our problem right now.” Remembering how Lady Layna had waited years for Revya’s very soul to come along because no other would do, Revya was doubtful.

 

“Make a left.” Despite Gig not actually knowing where they were going, Revya followed his suggestion. It was better than his first, second, and third ideas for escape. “Enter that room.” Revya sighed despite himself.

“Gig, we’re looking for a way out. Won’t we be going deeper in like this?”

“Did I finish my sentence?” Gig snarked. “Enter that room, find the nearest person, put your sword to—” Revya interrupted him by opening the door.

They were immediately greeted by the groans and coughs of the ill. The air smelled of rot and disease. There were beds from wall to wall where the sick lied. Their bodies were red from head to toe. Two clerics carrying a body bag pushed by Revya as he stared dumbly. Someone shouted behind him, maybe the soldiers finally finding him. Gig’s words barely registered in his head.

“What the fuck are you doing?! Close the damn—”

 

It was almost the third week Revya and Gig had been in the past. They waited, and waited. Hours and hours and days went by without anything happening. The action happened around them, outside their little prison-bedroom.

“Is this what it was like back in the sword?” Revya asked one day. There was nothing else to do but talk. Revya could feel Gig shrug. (It was a little interesting how he had come to know how Gig responded, even though he couldn’t see him outside of dreams and the rare moments he entered their shared mindspace. Revya thought of it as a consequence of their fusion solidifying, wondered if they’ll ever come apart at this rate, then stopped thinking about it.)

“I guess. Not as dark though. And you’re here,” he muttered.

“Do I really make that much of a difference?”

“Well, when you won’t shut the fuck up, like right fucking now, yeah, I’d say there’s a difference.” Revya laughed quietly. He guessed Gig was glad he wasn’t alone too.

 

Median’s daughter was only a child, yet her eyes were sharp and keen. She was looking at Revya as though she knew he was the one who brought an end to her father. Maybe she did know. They would probably tell her. There was no malice, however, just intense… attention. She was watching to see what he did. A soldier poked Revya in the back with his spear, prompting him forward.

“Come on. Get back to your room.” Revya slowly broke eye contact with the young Layna and moved forward. Her attendant pulled her away.

“Weird kid,” Gig muttered. Revya made a noise of agreement, and absentmindedly scratched at a light pink rash on his arm.

 

There were red bodies in their dreams. Red bodies, weakly moaning, rotting, grabbing at them. Hands pull uselessly at their clothes. They throw them off, sword and scythe slicing them in pieces like a knife cutting butter. They can’t breathe. They start to sink in the piles of red flesh and puddles of red fluid. Looking closer, they see a king inside the mounds. He stares, and one of them sees himself in the dead eyes. Their skin is the same color as their hair. Who’s moving the body? One of them says something, but it comes out choked. They’re red inside, and it fills their throat slowly. The witch is there, dead pale amongst the scarlet. 

She laughs.

 

He’s been contaminated. Revya was still able to move, but they noticed the rashes on his skin and have basically locked him in his room. The door was guarded better this time, and Revya had officially given up on escape.

“If they’re gonna keep us in here, they should at least give us better food,” Gig said. He didn’t voice it, but Revya knew he was concerned. If they caught the disease that had been going around, there was almost no chance they were going to survive. Everyone else had died so far.

“I’m a fucking dumbass,” Revya said under his breath. He had been in the presence of the sickness for less than a minute and managed to get infected. Gig missed nothing. He had never missed a word Revya had ever said.

“Shut the fuck up,” he scoffed. Despite his unspoken reassurance (you’re not a dumbass for catching a disease that’s spreading like a strong fart in a small room, but you’re a dumbass if you think you are), Revya still felt like shit.

From the start, they were never going to go home.

 

Revya had been thinking a lot lately, thinking too much about little things that didn’t matter. Maybe it was because he knew he was going to—

He didn’t want to think about _that_ , he would rather think about the weird stuff, like how he noticed that, after their fight, Gig called _them_ the “indestructible _duo_ ,” and how Gig used to call only _himself_ indestructible. They might be getting closer, he thought, not just fusion-wise. Gig did start getting… Revya wouldn’t say nicer because Gig would kick his ass if he called him nice, but he had been... less severe after he knocked the fuck out for a week after they killed Feinne. It might have been that. Gig had also been using Revya’s name a lot more than usual. Less “kid, shut the fuck up,” and more “Revya, go the fuck to sleep.”

Revya would be lying if he said he didn’t like being called by his name, but it almost felt like the world really was ending now.

 

It suddenly hit in the early morning. They had both been feeling slightly under the weather, but it hadn’t been too bad. Revya was almost fascinated with the way the rashes deepened in color and spread so rapidly, the unexpected pain in his muscles and lungs, the desperate need for air. He couldn’t help it. There was no point in being upset now.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Gig asked. Revya nearly laughed. One, he should have already known what was wrong. Maybe he didn’t feel it the way Revya did, but then Revya remembered that, by this point, the only way their souls could come apart was through the work of a god, and changed his mind. If Gig didn’t know what was wrong, he was dumber than Revya thought. Two, Gig’s voice was so uncharacteristically  _ soft _ . Revya wanted to laugh, and laugh, and laugh, until he cried. He wanted to cry and cry. Where was the killer of kings? Destroyer of worlds? Gig sounded so unusually kind. His voice immediately changed, sounding more agitated with an edge of worry.

Whose life was he worried for?

Revya closed his eyes. A deep ache settled in his bones. In a way, Revya had secretly liked that no shit attitude of Gig’s, but he didn’t mind this. He wished he could live longer, just to hear that gentle tone again.

 

Revya had already accepted his fate. Gig still tried to deny it.

“You got medicine, right? Just drink it and you’ll be fine!”  _ No Gig _ , Revya wanted to say.  _ You should know this. They have no medicine _ . He could only cough as the soldier answered for him.

Revya wished Gig didn’t have to die with him. Sure, maybe with his own body Gig would just return to destroying the world and undoing everything Revya had worked so hard for. But because it would be Gig, Revya wouldn’t be able to get angry. They had grown closer in all sorts of ways. Even if he was a maniacal shithead, Revya liked Gig, and so because it would be Gig, it would be okay.

 

“A body like yours”? What was that supposed to mean?

 

The release from pain was almost joyous. The fading from consciousness and feeling was almost pleasant.

Everything was finally ending.

Revya’s heart broke anyway when he heard Gig cry out for him.


End file.
